


Four Score

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: Devil's Carnival (2012)
Genre: Alcohol, Cocktail Fic Challenge, Dubious Consent, M/M, Whipping, dub-con, public
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:50:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even the carnies need to follow the rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Score

Anyone who has been to Hell knows that there are rules. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), nobody knows all of the rules. Not even the man in charge. Some of it is due to the fact that they are forever changing. And why are they forever changing? Why, because they are the rules of Hell! Would it make much sense if they were always the same? The whole point of Hell is to torment those in it, in any way, shape, or form.

The Scorpion knew this - of course the Scorpion knew this, because it was his very job to torment the sweet, innocent, stupid little things that came wandering through. All well and good, of course, but it grows boring. Was the Scorpion originally a sinner himself? Who knows? The Scorpion surely doesn’t. Time moves differently in Hell, entirely different, and sinners from bygone era mingle freely with those from the future, although the logistics of all of it are rather confusing.

The Scorpion sat in the center of ring, because there wasn’t anything else for him to do at present. The dead body was next to him, still tied to the wheel, the plastic orange ring glinting on one finger. He raised a mocking toast to her with his flask, swallowing it down, and the brandy burned down his throat to warm his stomach, the other things in the drink (something the Magician had given him, while stuttering about Winston Churchill - who knew how that weirdo thought?) rolling around his mouth like marbles.

”Drinking in the ring breaks rule number six hundred and thirteen,” said a voice behind him, and the Scorpion nearly jumped out of his skin (which was, in its own way, his skeleton, because in Hell things stagnate, and names have more of an effect than is generally thought of). The Ticket Keeper was standing there, holding his scrolls and looking smug.

”Since when?” The Scorpion took another slug, wiping his arm on the back of his hand, looking up and grinning in a way that the dead body pinned to the wheel had found so endearing.

”Rules are rules,” the Ticket Keeper said placidly, and he made a gesture over his shoulder. The Tamer appeared, like he always did, looking big and mean and terrifying. He almost never spoke, as far as the Scorpion knew, but he stood there with his whip in hand, looking like some trophy out of a hunter’s lodge. Why did they have a tamer in the first place - what did he tame?

”What if I refuse to comply?” The Scorpion stood up, and took another drink, licking brandy off of his lips.

The Tamer calmly reached over, grabbed the flask, and threw it to the other side of the ring, the drink sprinkling out to soak into the sawdust. Maybe the entity that was Hell itself would enjoy the chance to get a bit tipsy for a change.

”Hey!” The Scorpion all but growled, and he had a knife in his hand before the thought came to him, advancing on the Tamer.

”Rule number four hundred and sixty one,” the Ticket Keeper said. “No threatening the entity dispensing punishments.”

”You’ll have to catch me first,” the Scorpion said, switching tack and running out from under the Tamer’s outstretched arm. There was the usual sounds as he ran, like something that he dimly remembered from his own childhood. Or was it a memory he had stolen from somebody else?

”Rule number eighty seven,” said the Ticket Keeper, who was no longer in the tent, but standing in front of the Scorpion in the alley between two different booths, the Tamer beside him. “No attempting to escape punishment for breaking rules.”

The Tamer grabbed the Scorpion by the back of the neck, picking him up easily. The man was made of solid muscle, and the Scorpion struggled to grab one of his knives, although that wouldn’t help. Nothing stopped the Tamer - a shotgun blast to the head kept him going, even while the splattered remains of his brain had painted the ceiling a sickly grey-green color. He had dispensed the punishment, and the next time the Scorpion saw him, his head was back to normal.

”I believe that the punishment that you have, incurred, in total, would be eighty lashes. Would you agree?” The Ticket Keeper somehow managed to look at the Tamer over his long beak of a nose, even though he was probably a foot shorter.

The Tamer nodded stiffly, and he walked, still carrying the Scorpion by the neck, into the midway. He dropped the Scorpion in front of one booth, letting go of the Scorpion’s neck and holding the Scorpion’s wrists together in one hand. He just as casually removed the Scorpion’s red scarf and leather jacket, leaving them crumpled in a heap on the ground. His other hand was out of the Scorpion’s vision, and it was almost no surprise when the handcuffs closed around the Scorpion’s wrists - the Tamer would have that on him, wouldn’t he? The Scorpion winced when the Tamer forced the Scorpion’s hands flat on the booth - the splintery wood bit into his palms.

”Do we really need to do this? All of this stuff is an act for the rubes, isn’t it?” The Scorpion looked over his shoulder at the Tamer, who had stepped back. “Don’t you trust me not to do it again?” He was pulling the face - the face that always made the girls melt, in more ways than one.

The Tamer didn’t respond - the whip whistled past the Scorpion’s ear, and cracked him across the cheek. That would leave a mark! The Scorpion made an indignant noise and attempted to move, but he seemed to be glued to the spot by his hands. Of course. Some sort of magic or trickery or… something. This was Hell, after all.

The Scorpion turned around, more to keep from getting his face hit then from submission. He’d get the Tamer back for this, and the idiot would regret ever laying hands on the Scorpion. Maybe a knife to the eye would help things become a bit more clear to the guy….

The Scorpion yelped when the whip hit his back, barely protected by the torn white t-shirt. It became more torn soon enough, ripping open from the thick force of the whip, and this time there was definitely blood. The Tamer was hitting him harder than he’d hit that stupid girl who broke the other rules, but that had been the point, hadn’t it? Make her feel it and regret it, but not break her. She wasn’t an actual denizen of Hell. At least, not yet.

See, working for the Boss himself - the Morningstar, the Devil, and all of his many other names - came with certain things that look like benefits, but in hindsight really aren’t. What’s the point of living forever, if you can never leave Hell? What’s the point of never dying, if you can always feel the pain? And the Scorpion had signed his contract the same as anyone else, with his bloody thumbprint (achieved with his own knife, even), and he was a full time employee.

Which meant that the Tamer could and did hit as hard as he could, hard enough to break the bones of a guest, but it only made the Scorpion’s teeth rattle with each stinging hit. And of course, Wick and her Woe Maidens were coming, full of their usual taunts and laughs. Everyone was coming by, jeering and cheering and laughing. Even the Painted Doll, although that wasn’t that surprising. In Hell, an alliance is simply to pass the time before the next betrayal.

It was around hit number forty that the Scorpion became aware of the fact that he had an erection. It wasn’t so much that being in Hell made your body not connected to you (well, not your body-body - his actual body was rotting away somewhere), so much as it made it so that everything felt… distant. He was in his own head right now, to a certain extent, and he wished that he had his hands free, so that he could grab his knife and shove it into Wick’s obnoxious face, so close to his own. It wouldn’t do anything but piss her off, but she was a good fuck when she was angry.

The Tamer stopped with his whipping, and the Scorpion looked over his shoulder, confused, because the hits had been raining down like fire and ice in Egypt, and while he had been having trouble keeping track, that hadn’t felt like eighty. Then the Tamer’s huge bulk was pressed against his back, and the Scorpion nearly screamed, because it hurt, from the bleeding welts on his back to the way a certain part of the Tamer was pressing against him. The Tamer got erections? Who would have thought he even had the capacity?

”And now, a pause in our punishment for some entertainment,” came the voice of the Ticket Keeper, and the Scorpion felt his face flush, although he tried to ignore it. There were arms drawing his legs open now, a woe maiden on each leg probably, and he looked down at each of them with a look that was a combination of sweetness and pitiful, a look that he had perfected even before he died.

”You don’t want to let him do something like this to me, do you?” He kept his voice sweet and soft, projecting in such a way that each girl would think that she was the only one who he was talking to.

In a perfect world, that would have worked. Each girl would have melted, would have let him go and had the Ticket Keeper let him go, and he’d fuck each girl special and kill them even more special. But of course this wasn’t perfect, because this was Hell. One of the girls bit his leg, digging her teeth in hard enough that he felt the blood roll down. The other girl laughed like some kind of hyena, smiling at him with all her teeth. He growled, momentarily losing his usual facade, and wished that he had the tail that the Painted Doll had talked about.

The Tamer’s hands weren’t as rough as they could have been when they pulled down the Scorpion’s pants, which is not to say that they were gentle, but considering that there was blood running down the Scorpion’s back…. His hand on the Scorpion’s cock was tight and calloused from the weapons he wielded against rule breakers, and when he nipped the back of the Scorpion’s neck, there was enough lip in it to qualify as a rough kiss. The Scorpion wriggled under him, feeling exposed and far too horny for his own good, while he stared into Wick’s eyes, because what choice did he have?

He was still staring at her when the Tamer’s big, blunt fingers were inside of him, twisting roughly, making his knees go weak (and maybe he was slightly grateful for the woe maidens holding him in place, because otherwise he might have fallen). She was laughing, and the Tamer’s hand was holding tightly to his hip, hard enough that he’d have a hand shaped bruise there soon. Or he would, if they really bruised. His back was on fire, but it was distant, and while the throbbing of it was painful, it felt like it was happening far away - the room besides his was burning down, but his? He was safe and sound.

Of course, the Tamer’s cock was just as huge as the rest of him. When he forced it in, it hurt, and the Scorpion screwed his eyes shut and wondered, idly, if this was a bit like what it felt like for some of the girls. He wasn’t sure which girls - maybe some of the ones from when he was alive? He didn’t remember much from his life, only bits and pieces. Feelings, smells, tastes. Nothing concrete, nothing linear. The Tamer was utterly alien, though - hot and rank, like some kind of wild beast. He pressed close to the Scorpion, one hand around his cock, the other holding his hip, and began rutting like a beast.

The Scorpion was moving with the Tamer, even though he didn’t entirely want to. But this was a show, as much as anything else win Hell was a show, and besides, if he put on a good show, maybe things would go a bit easier for him. He could at least hope, right? There wasn’t much in the way of pain, at the very least - at least, nothing more painful than the burning, throbbing of his back. In contrast, the stretching inside of him felt almost… pleasant.

Not almost pleasant. Very pleasant. Pleasant enough that his cock was beginning to throb in time with his heart, and he was able to ignore Wick’s face and obnoxious jeers, instead choosing to focus on the bites on his neck and shoulders, the way the Tamer’s hips worked against his, the way his own cock was swelling, his own pleasure mounting. He could even ignore the little twinges of pain, when the Woe Maidens holding his legs open bit or pinched him, or the ache of his bound wrists, no doubt being ground full of splinters as the booth shook with each thrust of the Tamer’s hips.

The Scorpion’s orgasm was painful, painful in a way that almost made him sob in pleasure as his cum dripped down onto the sound, making him shudder and shake, sagging forward against the booth. Of course, the Tamer didn’t try to hold him upright. There may have been something that was vaguely like affection, but this was Hell. There are limits. The Tamer’s orgasm was heralded by the loss of rhythm, and the scalding hotness that seemed to flood the Scorpion, and that hurt more than it should have.

Then the Tamer was pulling out, and the Scorpion blinked, feeling light headed from the orgasm, his whole body shivering. The Tamer (and his warm bulk) were not longer pressed against the Scorpion, and the bare skin was cold. He could feel a trickle of cum, now cold, sliding down his leg. The woe maiden holding that leg cackled and smeared it across the Scorpion’s skin. The Scorpion looked blearily over at the Ticket Keeper, expecting him to walk over and unlock the handcuffs or… something, but no. He was standing there with that smug grin on his face.

”Right. And now, back to our show.”

The whip hit the Scorpion in the side, and he yelped, wondering why he had ever thought things in Hell would change.


End file.
